
Goal-setting, whether in running or in life as a whole, is a strange business. Much of it is an exercise in measuring ourselves against others (and really ourselves), and much of the deeper reason for it, I suspect, is that overarching desire to give our lives meaning.
If we never try or strive, what's the point?
And still: If we're setting goals that are lower than the best or even deliberately attainable, what's the point as well?
As this applies to running, the vast majority of us who sign up for races do so with no intention that we are going to win the race. We are not professional runners. But while most of us are merely happy to finish a race of any distance, many of us also set relative goals for the time in which we'd like to finish that are minutes, if not hours, off of the winning time.
This brings me to the Lake Minnetonka Half Marathon, which was this past Sunday. I've never really been one to set time goals, instead trying to let the race evolve and enjoy the process. An exception was Grandma's Marathon in 2012, when I was determined to run a sub-4 hour time (and barely made it with 55 seconds to spare).
Much has changed since that race; as a lot of you know by now, I was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis in 2014. As I struggled with the original symptoms that led to the diagnosis in February last year, there was a period of about 3 weeks when running just wasn't possible. I was physically exhausted, with a side dish of other weird effects. Even as things gradually improved and I started slowly running again, I would only go a few miles at a time at a 10-minute mile pace. That was as much as my body would comfortably tolerate.
Since then, of course, I've recovered enough to the point that training for another marathon felt possible. And along the way, perhaps as an offshoot of a diet that keeps me a few pounds lighter and gives me more energy, I've noticed that there are days when I feel faster than ever.
Again, fast is a relative term – for me, it means sometimes running comfortably at an 8-minute mile pace for several miles; the best distance runners are almost twice as fast. But compared to the 10-minute miles I was grinding out a year ago or the 8:30/9 minute mile pace I was used to when I was training for previous marathons, it is fast.